the jefferson project

The Jefferson Project is transforming Lake George in upstate New York into "The Worlds Smartest Lake". Fresh water environments, like Lake George, are facing unprecedented threats worldwide – from agricultural runoff and urban development, to road salt in winter. To help protect one of America’s most famous lakes, we’re building a new model for environmental monitoring and prediction, a blueprint to preserve other fresh water bodies.

At IBM Research, we're using a suite of numerical models to simulate the physical environment at Lake George. For my part, I lead the weather and land surface modeling. Each modeling component – for the weather, soil processes, hydrology, hydrodynamics, and lake chemistry and biology – must interact seamlessly with each other. They form part of a state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure platform, combining model capabilities with a lake-wide intelligent sensor network, machine learning and data dissemination.